Sana'a: A Yemeni religious scholar issued a warning on Monday
against self-proclaimed religious police that have been roaming the
streets of Yemen using sticks to enforce strict religious
interpretations on citizens.

"We condemn those who hide under the cloak of promoting virtue
and preventing vice," Yahya Al Najar, a member of the Yemeni
scholars association, told reporters.

Al Najar said that those self-proclaimed police were in fact,
illegitimate.

"The promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice is done in
the mosques and not in the streets," Al Najar added. Those
religious hardliners lost many followers because of their rigid way of
interpreting Islam and are now using force to bring people back, Al
Najar explained.

He said he thinks the self-proclaimed religious police have
received encouragement from some Salafi extremist scholars who have been
trying to establish an order of "virtue and prevention of
vice" similar to the one in Saudi Arabia.

The actions of the self-proclaimed religious police have been met
by much criticism from human rights groups and journalists monitoring
the situation.

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